Polit-Sheer-Form Office

FIELD MEETINGOctober 26th, 2014 New York City
Shanghai-based curator Mathieu Borysevicz, briefly introduced Chinese art collective Polit-Sheer-Form Office before their performance exploring notions of collectivity, conceptualized specifically for FIELD MEETING. A young lady on stage, Ms. Zheng (named after their work “Mr. Zheng”), led the entire auditorium into a series of breathing and body movements much to the delight and relief of audience members who had been sitting and listening to a marathon of FIELD MEETING presenters all day long. PSFO members then engaged in a Q&A. PSFO was established in 2005 by individual art practitioners and artists Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Song Dong, Liu Jianhua, and Leng Lin, who “came together in an attempt to create a framework—albeit tongue-in-cheek—for collective life in today’s consumer-oriented China,…while removing the political content historically associated with it.”

Polit-Sheer-Form Office, or PSFO, was an art collective founded in 2005 by artists Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Song Dong, Liu Jianhua, and Leng Lin. The group originally formed for the abstract purpose of seeking “collective form” and purifying politics, culture, the economy, and everyday life. Their first projects were discussions about these subjects held in famous, historical sites: Chinese civil war battlegrounds, factories, farms, schools, and recreational centers. There was a humorous edge to these undertakings—indeed the name “Polit-Sheer-Form Office” was meant to sound like an absurd government bureau. Over the course of their six-year run, they crafted an insignia, composite portraits, propaganda posters, and their own fake library with 10,000 carefully numbered books painted in blue but without content.

(Source: https://artsy.net/artist/polit-sheer-form-office)

Founder and director, Mathieu Borysevicz is a curator, critic and artist who has been active in the contemporary arts of China since the mid-1990s.

(Source: http://www.mabsociety.com/statement–3847236848.html)

Polit-Sheer-Form Office & Mathieu Borysevicz’s participation in FIELD MEETING was supported by MABSOCIETY

Polit-Sheer-Form Office, Do the same good deed (still), 2014. Video. Courtesy of MABSOCIETY